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NYC brought to a standstill by failing American infrastructure

JFK airport chaos
Extended period of winter cold created problems in America's largest city.

In America, things are not supposed to suffer any breakdown. Ever.

But the reality is that they do, and much of the time, the breakdowns are symptomatic of neglect.

Take New York City, for example. This is the largest city in the United States, with some eight million in the city itself and another 14 million in a densely packed region of suburbs across the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Comment: The failing American infrastructure is symptomatic of a nation rotting from the inside. One can only expect more of these types of chaotic events as the rot continues to spread.

See also:


Flashlight

Maryland teacher fired for racially-charged alt-right social media posts

Teacher/coach Gregory Conte
© Fox 5 DC screenshot
Teacher/coach Gregory Conte, who apparently posts online under the name Gregory Ritter, was fired from a private all-girls Catholic school in Maryland for his connection to the alt-right, including a number of racially charged social media posts.
A private all-girls Catholic school in Maryland has fired a teacher/coach for his connection to the alt-right, including a number of racially charged social media posts.


What happened?


The teacher, Gregory Conte, apparently posts online under the name Gregory Ritter, according to The Hill. He is a member of white supremacist Richard Spencer's security detail and works for his "policy" organization, the National Policy Institute.

He was identified as one of the attendees at the controversial Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstrations last year that left one protester dead and many others injured.

Conte had been employed by the school as a substitute teacher and field hockey coach since 2014. According to The Hill, students discovered that Conte was posing online under a pseudonym, but it is not clear how they made this discovery.

Comment: See also:


Info

Alright, let's talk about "President Oprah's" Golden Globes speech

Oprah Winfrey
I'm being a little facetious with that headline -- but not too facetious, given the social media reaction Leah covered this morning. Let me begin by saying that I did not watch one second of the Golden Globes awards as they aired Sunday night. This wasn't a deliberate boycott on my part; I just wasn't terribly interested. Plus, I hear that The Crown lost to The Handmaid's Tale in major categories, so I suppose I spared myself some aggravation anyway. Nevertheless, the Twitter buzz about Oprah's remarks (she received an award honoring her 'contributions to the world of entertainment'), was so overwhelming that I decided to take nine minutes to watch it in its entirety. I'm glad I did, because it was a damn fine speech. Even if you're not a fan of her work or her politics, I'd encourage you to take a look:

Comment: While some people, the above author included, seem to be quite taken with Oprah's Golden Globes speech, others are not so impressed. From these seats, it seems like cheap pandering and self-congratulatory back-slapping for the Hollywood elite. In other words, same old awards show. See also:


Oscar

Four problems with Oprah's much-ballyhooed speech on #MeToo

Oprah
On Sunday evening, Oprah Winfrey received the Cecille B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. She proceeded to launch into an emotional speech about the power of women to fight back against sexism and sexual malfeasance - a speech that led to widespread celebration in Hollywood, where everyone knew about the problem of sexual harassment and assault and nobody did anything for years, but where one speech from the most powerful woman in the history of media can apparently cure all ills.

Oprah's speech was quite good, of course. She's a terrific performer, and she's world famous for her ability to connect with her audience on a personal level. The speech led NBC to tweet out its support for her presidential candidacy, and led actress Reese Witherspoon to elevate Oprah to the level of Jesus:

Comment: The speech also didn't address possible problems with the metoo movement itself but rather focused on the victim ideology that permeates the movement and turns it into a witch hunt that harms both women and men. For more on that, see:


Mr. Potato

Trump may cause the extinction of the entire human race, says hysterical Yale psychiatry professor

orangetrump
© Alternet
Booh!
President Doanld Trump is severely mentally impaired and may force the extinction of the entire human race, according to Dr. Bandy Lee, a Yale psychiatrist and clinical professor.

Woah, what did she say?

Lee, who is internationally known and has briefed members of Congress on Trump's mental fitness, told Newsweek last week that Trump's mental impairment is not just dangerous for the United States - but for the entire world. And with each passing day, the dangers become greater, she said.

"As more time passes, we come closer to the greatest risk of danger, one that could even mean the extinction of the human species," Lee said. "This is not hyperbole. This is the reality."

How bad does she say it is? According to Lee, it's a "public health emergency that needs to be responded to as quickly as possible."

Comment: The anti-Trump propagandists are scraping the bottom of the barrel. But they need not worry - Trump turned out not to be another Hitler, but another Obama.


Whistle

British Actress says Weinstein used Oprah to lure her to his hotel room

Oprah Me Too
On Sunday night Oprah Winfrey lectured the nation and white males for the monstrous sexual abuse culture in Hollywood during her Golden Globes speech. Most all of the men accused of abusive behavior against women in the past several months are liberal elites.

But it wasn't that long ago that a British actress accused Weinstein and Oprah of persuading her to his hotel bedroom.

Harvey Weinstein's lurid past and outright inappropriate behavior was the focus of the news cycle last year.

Although Weinstein faded from public view, Hollywood continued to implode.

Comment: While the virtue signalling Oprah gets tagged for the next US Prez, her conspicuous relationship with fallen-from-grace Harvey Weinstein remains problematic for her potential liberal voter base. It seems the #MeToo brouhaha has had more collateral damage to the left than anticipated.

See also:


Stock Down

UK economic collapse accelerating: 28% increase in shops going bust, biggest slump since 2009, food and fuel prices rise

A man passes a clothing shop holding a closing down sale in London October 20, 2010.
© REUTERS/Chris Helgren
A man passes a clothing shop holding a closing down sale in London October 20, 2010.
The number of shops going bust increased last year for the first time in five years, new data shows.

Deloitte said on Monday that 118 retailers went into administration last year, up from 92 in 2016.

The figures came as data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) showed the biggest slump in non-food spending since 2009. Spending grew by 1.1% in the final three months of 2017, a big drop off from the year's average growth of 1.7%.

Comment: There are many factors affecting the UK economy and the majority can be traced back to the economic crises' and the corrupt government policies they introduced such as the nefarious 'austerity measures' and the ideologically driven, predatory economic practises:


2 + 2 = 4

1 in 4 fathers don't live with their kids

sad child
Over the last 20 years, I've spent a good deal of time working with kids from the inner city. Through this interaction, I've grown accustomed to the fact that biological fathers are virtually non-existent in the homes of the children I know. One might say I've even grown a bit numb to this sad reality at times.

But my numbness thawed a bit recently while having a startling conversation with a handful of kids. They explained, quite matter-of-factly, that the offspring of their fathers numbered in the upper teens.

Comment: Comment:


Attention

Infamous diversity memo author James Damore is suing Google for discriminating against white males

Google offices
© Reuters/Baz Ratner
If employee lawsuits are to be believed, Google is discriminating against men and women.
Ex-Google engineer James Damore filed a complaint in California state court, seeking class certification for his employment discrimination case against the tech giant, claiming Google is biased against conservative viewpoints, men, and Caucasians, in violation of state employment laws.

Damore wrote an internal memo about the biological reasons women aren't engineers that sparked national outrage and got him fired from his job last August. He's petitioned the Santa Clara County Superior Court on behalf of similarly situated plaintiffs, or "all employees of Google discriminated against (i) due to their perceived conservative political views" in the last four years, "due to their male gender" and/or "due to their Caucasian race" in the last year.

He is joined in the complaint by David Gudeman, a software engineer who worked at Google in Mountain View, California, for three years, left in December 2016, and is currently writing a book between temporary engineering jobs, per his LinkedIn. The duo argues:
Throughout the Class Periods, and in violation of California law, Google employees who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects raised in the workplace and relevant to Google's employment policies and its business, such as "diversity" hiring policies, "bias sensitivity," or "social justice," were/are singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google, in violation of their legal rights.

Comment: See the Class Action Complaint here.

More from RT:
Ex-Google engineer fired for 'diversity memo' sues over anti-white male discrimination
9 Jan, 2018 07:40

Former Google engineer James Damore has filed a class action lawsuit against Google, saying he was "ostracized, belittled and punished" for expressing unpopular, conservative opinions while he was employed by the internet giant.

The lawsuit filed Monday in the Santa Clara Superior Court in Northern California by the Dhillon Law group alleges that Google "discriminated against employees for their perceived conservative political views," as well as their "Caucasian race" and "male gender." However, while Damore fits into those three descriptions, the lawsuit is also filed on behalf of women and people of color who Google allegedly mistreated on the basis of one or any combination of those categories.

The suit also states the company "systematically punished" the alleged victims, CNBC reported.

Damore was axed by Google in August for "perpetuating gender stereotypes" after he sent out an internal memo criticizing Google's diversity practices. He is joined in the lawsuit by David Gudeman. He also worked at Google until he was fired in December 2016 for comments he made on a coworker's online thread relating to being targeted by the FBI because of the their religion, according to Mashable.


The proposed class action lawsuit calls on current and former employees of Google who feel they have been discriminated against for having "unpopular political views," or being white or male to join in the legal action.

"Google employees who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects raised in the workplace and relevant to Google's employment policies and its business, such as 'diversity' hiring policies, 'bias sensitivity,' or 'social justice' were/are singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google, in violation of their legal rights," the lawsuit states, CNBC reported.


The lawsuit further alleges that the search engine giant showed "open hostility for conservative thought," while Damore and others at Google were "ostracized, belittled and punished" for their views. It goes on to say that Google is an "ideological echo chamber" which uses "illegal hiring quotas" at the expense of white males.

A media conference at the offices of Dhillon Law Group, with Damore and lawyer Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, who is handling the suit, followed the announcement of the class action lawsuit Monday. Dhillon said Google is not the only company guilty of the allegations included in the lawsuit, and hopes this filing will act as a wake-up call for Silicon Valley, where she says the "only acceptable form of discrimination" targets "conservatives and white men."

The legal move comes on the heels of Damore spending several months talking to the press about discrimination practices after Google fired him.

During one specific conversation with Business Insider, Damore compared being a conservative at Google to "being gay in the 1950's."
See also:


Star of David

Israel bans Quaker group honored for helping Jews during Holocaust because they are now helping Palestinians

AFSC Israel/Palestine
© Brant Rosen
AFSC Israel/Palestine staff meeting in Ramallah (with Ali and Firas joining us from Gaza via Skype)
One of the special ironies of the weekend's news that Israel is barring 20 international organizations from entry because they support BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is the appearance on that list of the venerable American Friends Service Committee, or AFSC, which was founded 101 years ago as an antiwar organization.

AFSC earned distinction and a Nobel Prize for helping Jews and other refugees escape the Holocaust. Now it is on that list because it is helping Palestinians!